#ynt ivan

So, Mineyama's dung-beetle tsugai is Soul Roller--the male Taro rolls the corpses into a ball, and the female Hime lays eggs in the meatball. When the eggs hatch, the hatchlings eat the meatball and emerge once they are fully developed as

Ugh. Real fun.

Do you know what's even more fun?

Ivan has way more reasons to fear her than the other way round. If, by any chance, he dies, her tsugai will simply, routinely roll up his corpse, lay eggs in it and bam! emerges a daemon!Ivan who will be forced into a contract where the contractor has no fear of backstabbing or betrayal from the human!Ivan (like in Shingo's case). If a crisis arises, the Nishino gang will be more interested in keeping around Mineyama, not Ivan. If Ivan dies, he dies--as always, the fucked-up gang will look forward to the daemon hatched out of his meatball lmao

Well, it is refreshing that in a male-female partnership like theirs, it is female cleaner who has the upper hand, and not the male assassin.

Is it why Anna was freely giving out his abilities to Hana? In hopes the Higashi side/Kagemori and co. could better formulate a plan to kill him if they knew his abilities? She does have her creepy-yandere-grin-since-I-am-putting-up-an-act face on here, but I am not so sure about this......... dead and daemonified!Ivan won't be any less dangerous than human!Ivan. but okay, that was something that stood out to me in chapter 35.

Most importantly, how in the world did she end up with a tsugai this morbidly useful? A recurring pattern is parents passing on their job, tsugai, cursed burden to their kid: Hana, Dera, Asuma and more. Were these two daemons passed down to her by her parents? Did her parents belong to the Nishino cult of whatevers and whatnots, but she wants nothing to do with them, just wants to live a simple life with her friends like Yuru and Asa?

Or, is she another of Minase's kids....?

I don't have enough proof for this, other than 1) their hair color being similar. + 2) 400 years is enough time for the woman to have a bunch of kids/tools to do her bidding. + 3) making her own daughter form a contract with a tsugai that turns corpse balls into daemons seems like a very Minasesque fun activity for her kid. just like sealing another child's emotions and abandoning him as a baby at an orphanage.

one detriment to this theory is this panel.

Unless Misasagi himself doesn't know Anna is Minase's daughter, and unless it is a rule to ask an assassin to borrow their cleaner or smth, it doesn't make sense why he would ask permission from Ivan to send Anna out on missions. And if Anna is really Minase's daughter, she would be as much of a VIP as Akio is to them.

so yeah, on the whole, what is Anna's stance on all of this? Since she was being listened in to, she could obviously not give away a lot of information to Hana, but she did what she could, risking her life. Implying, she is not loyal to Nishino + does she want to get away and hopes the Higashi/Kagemori side could help her out? She doesn't seem that poor seeing she is going to a good high school and cramschool. Does she hope of escaping the Nishino cult if she gets in to a dream college?

Also, the concept of stray tsugais. If her tsugai aren't that hostile to a new master like Magatsuhi, Mineyama could be heavily blackmailed by the Nishino gang as in, "we can simply kill you and contract the dung-beetle tsugai for ourselves. If you want to keep your head, better do exactly as we say."

Finally, chapter 46:

Oh dear. I hope Dera didn't unwittingly sell out Mineyama??? probably just my paranoia, since Dera has captured Nagitsuji, later would have the parasite tsugai contract broken by Asa, grill the guy for information, and then kill him(maybe?).....

.....but what if Nagitsuji starts suspecting Anna and manages to pass on a message to Misasagi in the meantime? that Anna is or might be a traitor? His daemons seem capable of passing messages around without a delay idk.

In fact, if Anna is not Minase's daughter, I don't see why Misasagi won't kill her rightaway and get someone else to contract the corpse beetles. She doesn't seem a combatant type, and even if she was, what can you possibly do against Heaven-Earth tsugai?? If anything, maybe, maybe Ivan looks out for her? idk, he doesn't seem too concerned about her, but whatever. right now he is trapped inside Yin-Yang anyway, so no help there either.

Ugh. I just hope Anna escapes safely out of all this mess.

All in all, what I am saying is that I would only be relieved when Hana finally just kidnaps adopts Anna as their "fourth secret love child". Dera brought in three, now it is Hana's chance. Go for it, Hana!💪

Ivan is trapped inside Yin-Yang. Good.

Magatsuhi is sapping/has sapped the energy from Yin-Yang to heal Ivan's injuries. Bad.

If more energy is sapped of Yin-Yang, most likely it will return to its miniature form. But I don't think it will die. Which is Good. I can't bear cutiepatooties Yin-Yang's death.

(afaiu tsugai don't die unless they are cut down by another tsugai. So far, we have seen tsugai return to their relic forms upon the contractor's death, and the relic is then destroyed to "kill" the tsugai. Or, in case of Shingo Hayato, the tsugai were killed even before they returned to their relic form. Maybe, for stronger tsugai, destroying the relics will be harder? like for Left-Right, their totem seem to have survived for decades? but this is a discussion for another day.)

but, but, if Yin-Yang's barriers weaken from Magatsuhi's energy transfer, Ivan will be released from its realm. Which is Really Bad. We will be back to square one of the vs. Ivan battle since Chapter 42. once again, he'd have plenty of civilians in the line of sight of Break + worse, he is back to full health. 😭 So, all the damage inflicted upon him by Yuru, Left, Right, and Gabby is as good as useless.

Worse still, if he is released after they return to the Kagemori residence. The barrier is gone, Jin is badly injured and unable to fight, Papa Kagemori is killed and Hikaru? Will he be able to fight yet another strong opponent? I cannot process the vs. Misasagi battle chapters properly, but I fear there are more casualties in the Kagemori guard as well. We already saw Asuma is no match for this guy, and neither is Haruo. Uhhh, I am so worried.

I don't wanna blame Asa (as many people on reedit seem to blow up her mistake as something utterly unforgivable), but I confess she did fumble a little on the brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime chance to take down Ivan. ngl, I too expected a different outcome from the Asa vs Ivan showdown which was foreshadowed since Chapter 27. The buildup was excellent--and you can actually see Ivan was fighting on the backfoot against Asa, esp. with Yuru providing support from above and Gabby from the side. And then, Asa caught Ivan offguard and dragged him into Yin-Yang's realm to stop him from using the civilians as shield and interference. So far, handled beautifully.

so, what happened for Asa to not disable him immediately?

I think, for one, she relaxed a little as Ivan was successfully trapped inside Yin-Yang. as in, 'the civilians are no longer in danger, Gabby and Yuru are not in danger either. it's because I was unable to use Break on Ivan that Gab had to step in to fight him. She got into danger because of me.' Asa was visibly panicking when Ivan cut down Gabriel; it was then she summoned Yin-Yang. Yuru and Gab advised her several times to not blame herself for everything (even kicking her butt for good measure), but Asa has become accustomed to worrying for everyone's safety but her own, because she thinks she is the reason everyone is in danger in the first place. such habits die hard.

Then, this.

She saw no reason to act urgently, since they were no longer outside. Ivan is in full sight of Break. Nothing can come between them without her orders. He has nowhere left to run, no matter where he goes he will always be visible to Break. Like, a single pawn on an empty chessboard with an attacking queen.

I think her ebbing urgency was the reason she listened to Daikyo's plea for mercy. Anywhere else, she would have acted immediately. Inside Yin-Yang, she must have thought Ivan was trapped like a rat, and he was a dead man soon enough--so, it was not a wrong thing to hear out his/his tsugai's last words. Moreover, she has always had a soft spot for tsugais.

In the end, in spite of their plea, she still held her brother's safety above all else and took the decision to eliminate Ivan. So, idk why to so overwhelmingly and unnecessarily blame Asa.

She was 200% going to behead Ivan, in spite of her earlier anxiety she might end up killing an innocent or accidentally undo Gabby's contract since she was still getting used to Break. Inside Yin-Yang, she has no such worries. However she released Break, a small amount or massive surge, Ivan was going to be dead.

(Side note: ah, once again, she says this:

Girl, include yourself in his hitlist as well! He is after your head too! once again, Asa being the self-sacrificial girl with zero regard to the danger hanging over herself. 😭)

had she been slightly faster in releasing Break than Daikyo coming up with the idea of recharging from the barrier itself, Ivan would be dead. between Asa closing and opening her fist to release Break, and Ivan formulating an escape plan in his mind. it's all a matter of a fraction of a second. you can't blame Asa for not acting "faster", when the quarter second to close and open her fist is the minimum time to activate Break.

well, I think her actual panic and fumble happened here:

I believe it's her first time using Break on a live person? so far, she used it on objects, big and small, and to break contracts. the two people who killed her and were killed by her was her just instinctively using Break. it's one thing being mentally prepared for Break killing a human, it's another seeing it in action. she has no idea if the guy is gonna be torn into pieces or smashed from inside or what. it's not gonna be a pretty sight, anyway.

even if Yuru told her about how Ivan's energy transfer worked, she was still shocked at the decapitation, more so because Ivan himself was shocked. She probably thought she had already released Break and that's what caused his decapitation, before realizing it was self-inflicted. once again, all of this happens in a matter of seconds.

plus, there was no way for her to know Magatsuhi could do that on a barrier itself, because it seems to be the first time they have hit upon such an idea either.

All in all, whatever happened inside Yin-Yang was more of a mindgame involving speed, luck and decisions than an actual display of strength. true, Asa could have decapitated Ivan as soon as they entered the barrier, but it is not her character to be that merciless to a tsugai begging her to listen.

Well, what's done is done, and unless Yuru, Left and Right enter Yin-Yang to finish off Ivan, and unless Yin-Yang manages to detain Ivan in until they are done with him, they are in big trouble. With the mess the Kagemori castle is in, it won't be wise to take Ivan there either. Anyway, let's see what happens next chapter.

Another important detail we get is about Asa and Yuru's parents and confirmation they are indeed in Okinawa. Whether we can trust or not Daikyo's words is up in the air, but let's take it that Daikyo won't lie in the face of a plea for life.

and "cut" is an interesting choice of words. Knowing how their parents just "vanished" off the airplane, it is not difficult to guess the Magatsuhi's role in their disappearance.

But, are they dead or alive?

Daikyo asked Asa to go to Okinawa. apparently, because that's where her parents are. that's where her grandmother is. that's also where a pair of creepy spidery daemons have woven a web around her neck and make her repeat the same conversation with Asa.

(god forbid if that one corpse rolling theory is true, and this is what remains of her parents. No. I absolutely didn't think of it. Creepy. Shudder. I WILL cry.)

Okay, I am not going to go into any sort of creepy theories. I am trying to work out a "the twins' parents are alive and well and still very much human" theory, no matter how tiny the chance of a happy reunion is.

(In Asa we believe!)

Right and Left were definite about catching the scent of Mine and Nagisa's blood off the sword daemons, but we also gotta remember Right and Left are so sensitive to blood that they were able to track Asa down with a single vial of blood. That's not enough proof for me to believe their parents are truly dead.

Ivan claiming he killed Mine and Nagisa one by each hand and lopped their heads off (lol how extra).... turned out to be a bluff and a bait to provoke Yuru to lose his arrows. A LIE. aka, more proof to assume they are not dead, but actually alive and well.

Coming to Ivan, it didn't seem like he personally knew their parents either in chapter 25 or in chapter 47. Since Right and Left smelled their blood off his swords, did he assume like hey, since this is the day/night twins we are talking about, their parents would no doubt have been killed by the Nishino guys with their M.O. of beheading? or, does he really not know what happened to Mine and Nagisa? If so, and if only his swords know what he doesn't, does that mean ten years ago, the Magatsuhi belonged to some other tsugai user and that's who is involved with the disappearance of Mine and Nagisa? if so, is that previous user a foe or a friend to the parents? Did that person help them to escape somehow? or were they taken hostage--are still in hostage even after ten years? if even after ten years, their parents didn't make a secret appearance at least for their daughter, it must be something really formidable holding them back and I dread for the worst.

soon enough, we will get the roadtrip to Okinawa, and I am looking forward to a hopefully happy reunion, and not another winding mystery.

btw, I really loved the two page thought process of Ivan calculating all odds and evens of his survival before coming to the conclusion:

--adds a layer of characterization to him: desperation to survive in a zero-chance, total losing battle. for an antagonist, the author sure is putting in work for him, like dedicating two whole pages in a monthly manga for his thought bubbles alone is hella lot, no? I also like the bond between him and his two swords. the way he and Shokyo bicker all the time, and Daikyo is most often just giving them The Side Glance. yet, in the moment of crisis, it was Daikyo of all people who begged for his life that even he was surprised it spoke.